


Sunrise

by lferion



Series: Immortal Encounters [2]
Category: American Idol RPF, Glam Rock RPF, Highlander: The Series
Genre: Burning Man, Crossover, Drugs, Gen, Pre-Idol, QueenBitchFest, Songfic, moment of illumination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-23
Updated: 2009-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sometimes, in the desert, you can figure things out."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> The song I chose as inspiration was ["Black Country Rock"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLvhwD8cnKM) from _The Man Who Sold The World_.
> 
> The other character in this story is intended to be Methos, but you don't have to know anything about him (I hope) for this story to work. Adam certainly doesn't know who he is.
> 
> Many, many thanks to my excellent last-minute emergency beta.

The playa dust is acrid on Adam's tongue, dry and bitter in the back of his throat, overlaying the dark and dusty taste of _psilocybe cubensis_, but the just beginning sunrise is beautiful: stark and sharp and amazing in distant, alien splendor, cold air shimmering with hints of lemon and ochre and gold streaks fanning up over the purple-black silhouettes of the mountains. The edges of the high, wispy clouds are just starting to burn red and violet against the dark sky. He isn't even sure why he is up — Brad is asleep, curled warm in the sleeping-bag and blanket nest that is their bed. "One cold morning was enough, thank you" Brad had declared drowsily, and burrowed back under the haphazard layers, instantly in the Sandman's arms. But the sunrise had called to Adam, drawing him out of hazy dreams and comfortable embraces. There is something the Universe wants him to see/hear/taste/smell/feel. Something that is going to matter.

He wiggles his toes more snugly into his boots and shrugs his coat close. The fuzzy texture of his sweater tickles at his wrists, catches at the stubble on jaw and chin. His cheeks and nose and ears are already chilled, and he'd forgotten to grab a scarf, but it doesn't seem to matter. The muzzy, expansive comfort of the last bowl of the night has given way to a strange exhilaration, a prickling excitement that fizzes under his skin, and with no destination in mind but the snips and scraps of music that are always present in the corners of his mind (Bowie and Freddie, Madonna and Britney, P!nk and countless others) he sets his feet to the earth and lets them follow the dancing eddies of dust toward the gathering brightness.

_You never know, you might find it here on  
Black Country Rock (in black rock desert dust)_

The last stars are fading in the indigo haze behind him, but the unseen constellations still burn; Pisces sinking low even as Leo begins to follow Cancer up the slope of the heavens, fixed in orderly progression. In that moment Adam feels he has come adrift of ordinary time, stepped outside of mundane space (that is what Burning Man does, erases the ordinary to leave room for the extraordinary). His sense of being lost and unfocused in his own internal landscape has grown edges, become a presence that cuts the threads that hold him to the here and now (and paradoxically, make this moment, this place, this continuing instant, astonishingly and amazingly Present.) Canvas and nylon and velvet breathe around him, iron and steel murmur silently as he passes the walls and mounds, tangles and towers and fantastical shapes. The eastern edge of the ephemeral city beckons. He can feel the weight and gaze of the Man at his back, pulling and pushing, wooden heart beating out the rhythm of the ever-present drums.

He is not the only one up. Some have never gone to bed, and now huddle dazed or dozing close to the remnants of campfires, bonfires, where coals still glow dimly red, ghosts of warmth hovering in the rings of stone, the impromptu and elaborate hearths. Others, industrious, are already up betimes, coaxing new light and life out from sleeping ash, from oil and wood and charcoal. Someone nearby is baking bread, and an errant breeze brings both the faint high chime of bells and a whisper of spice and brewing coffee. But all that energy, that heat and light, seems distant from him.

Adam realizes one of the shadow-shapes has separated itself from a nearby encampment and is pacing deliberately beside him. Without startlement or surprise he recognizes the lanky, hawk-nosed man with the fathomless eyes and extremely talented mouth (not to mention hands, even though all they'd done was cup his face, feather lines of fire from ear to chin, down neck and throat, brief touches that burned and quenched, a kiss that satisfied even as it enflamed. _"A gift for a gift: a kiss for a song."_) Almost a shadow-self, with his height, his name (Adam, Adahm, a hint of the Hebrew in the pronuciation, and an indefinable sense of the meaning of the name, the word: man, person), and a palpable sense of self that Adam is only starting to approach. There is an odd comfort in his presence, an unobtrusive sense of centered and unjudging witness. This is a man who would know a safeword when he heard one, but will not interfere without. Something tight unspins in Adam's chest and he breathes in a sharp gust of air, tasting the molecules that rush down his throat, expand his lungs, press against his ribs, filling him with startled light. With astonished, astonishing freedom.

A dark shape looms up out of the pale dust, a rock and a high place, (an art-piece, a vision of a rock set in the middle distance, black stone in a sea of white sand.) They climb the steps spiraling up to the top. The sky sings with dawn as they settle in the hollowed cup at the base of an iron idea of a tree, comrade-close, breathing the same air.

_Some say the view is crazy  
But you may adopt another point of view_

They watch the slow symphony of the rising sun in silence: the polychrome clouds, the waking desert, Black Rock City emerging from the dawn shadows in all it's extravagant, eccentric exuberance. There is no need for words - words would be inadequate, an intrusion. Adam appreciates the other man's steady warmth at his shoulder, the solidity that reaches up from the earth. The clouds float in the sky, each one an individual brilliance edged in gold on blue, the colors of fire and flight. He glances over at Adahm and sees the same radiance reflected in hazel eyes, blue-white and tasting of lightning; the sense-impression of power, fierce and bright and appallingly beautiful.

Adam feels a drab haze threatening, gathering behind him, a miasma of safe and dreary sameness full of seeping, chattering fears. (_"Too fat, too gay, too freckled. Too weird, too out there, too big, too much…"_) All of a sudden it _is_ too much, he is done with that shit cluttering his head, getting in his way, stifling breath and spirit. He spreads his fingers wide and looses a burst of breath, scattering the drear mist, whirling it away in shreds and tatters. When he looks down, his own hands coruscate with light, swathes of glittering energy ribboning from his fingertips, the dark polish reflecting rainbows, unchipped and flawless in this othersight. His own power, his own light and energy, glorious profusion of potential, just waiting to be poured forth, welling like a fountain from within.

Oh.

His own power. His, to do with as he wills, not as others wish. His own power to create, to make, to make things happen. Everyone (every _thing_) has their own (the clouds, the art-rocks and the real-rocks, Adahm and Adam) and this is his, as fierce and beautiful and terrible as any other. The power inherent in Adam Mitchel Lambert. In him. _His._

Adam's throat works, dry. He swallows and words emerge, half song, half whisper. "I can do it. I _can_ do it. The only one who can do it is me."

Adahm nods, light gilding his face, a gentle smile curving his lips.

There is more to it than that, of course, there is the labor to make the vision reality, but he's never been afraid of working for what he wants, of taking up a challenge against odds and advice and seeming-sense when the prize matters. The sun has cleared the horizon, the puffs and streaks of cloud now dazzling white. "Stay on the cloud. Do what it takes to make the dreams real."

Adahm nods again, his smile widening.

The thought is almost complete, the invocation, the exhalation. Adam turns his face to the sky, spreads his arms wide, embracing the Universe. "We all have our own power, and whatever I want to do, _**I**_ have to make happen. I can. I _**will**_."

Adam shivers, shuddering in the ecstasy of the moment. The realization is a climax, akin to one of the best orgasms of his life, with many more where it has come from, an inexhaustible supply, like breath, like music.

Like life.


End file.
